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Huseyin1

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lappy wont boot up...

Hi all

As soon as I put my lappy on I get a message saying: Your BIOS upgrade is now ready, please insert floppy.

I havent done anyhing to the laptop, its an old compaq, with 64MB RAM on XP Pro.

I cant boot from the XP CD, I cant get into the BIOS, I cant boot to safe mode, there is'nt even the POST screen, just this message comes up.

H

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rubiconx

Daft question maybe but have you tried inserting a floppy?

Actually sounds like either a faulty BIOS or a battery problem.  What is the model?

Oh, and how the h*ll are you managing to run XP Pro in 64Mb???

Dave
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ASKER

lol, XP on a 64mb system, i know but it works ok for me, I only use it for the net, anyway, I did put a floppy in the drive and it just scans forever and then nothing happens.

Maybe itis the battery, how would the BIOS become faulty?

H
BIOS could have got spiked by something.  Doesn't need to have been anything serious.  Little static, program crash, memory error, who knows.  Trying to shoehorn XP Pro into 64Mb will push everything to it's limit!  LOL!

You could try booting into the BIOS setup and try setting it to default.  Problem with this is that some laptops require 'special' settings, and these could be lost.

Bit of a rock n hardplace scenario!

Good luck,

Dave
Ah - of course you can't get into the BIOS!

What model laptop is it?
If it is a compaq, parts of the BIOS may be on the hard drive. You should look at compaqs site for any information on this model, any "rompaqs"  or "softpaqs" available. Some models require special boot floppies.

The "BIOS upgrade" message is a bit odd, but there may be a hard drive problam behind this.
/RID
Rid's got the right thing to try 1st, goto compaq/hp's website and look it up. Or post your model/SN here and i'm sure one of us will get you the correct file.
I will add my view to this whole scenario as well, either to clarify or confues, you'll be the judge of that.
First, you are saying this is an old laptop and normally the CMOS battery has a lifespan between 2-3 years.
When the BIOS battery runs out, the first indication of problems is usually the system clock slowing down or changing dates.
Also, when there is insufficent voltage, i.e 3.3 volts there might be problems with keeping the EEPROMS up to date with the current information they are holding.. So, what are the EEPROMS holding?
Well, information of your BIOS version, I/O devices, CPU ID e.t.c.
Now, what happends if the battery has gone bad and the EEPROM has been erased?

Exactly, no BIOS in the system anymore.

What you need to do, is first of all to try and steal, highjack, ransack, threaten someone to provide you with a new CMOS battery. Secondly, and most important, since your BIOS is most likely corrupt or incomplete you will need to download a new BIOS from your Compaq / HP website. Normally these companies holds BIOS versions for a century back ;)
All you need is a floppy where you download the BIOS and then perform a flash.
Easy as that,
Hope this clarified some things rather than confused,
/B
By the way, I can also add that the minimum system requirements for running Windows XP Pro is 64 MB RAM but it may limit performance of the system :-Þ
/B
It may be out of place to start an argument here, but the BIOS is EEPROM and will NOT lose any info except if you flash it, like when doing a BIOS update. The BIOS setup is a small program in which you can alter some of the BIOS settings, but you don't alter the BIOS itself (this may be philosophical) but you alter the image of BIOS that is loaded into CMOS memory. The CMOS part keeps its information as long as it gets power - from the mobo power supply or from the CMOS or "real-time clock" battery. If the battery is bad the CMOS memory will lose its data at power-off, and the clock will reset and the CMOS will contain only the factory default BIOS settings at next startup. When the battery is on the verge, you can get CMOS data corruption ("checksum error" kind of things). "Resetting CMOS" is sometimes necessary and this is done by shorting out the CMOS power for a few seconds (usually a jumper on the mobo), or by removing thte CMOS battery for 15+ minutes (this can take time as there may be capacitors involved that need to drain completely).

Some computer manufacturers have chosen to put the user-adjustable parts of BIOS on a hidden or "non-DOS" partition on the hard drive. If the HD goes bad or is replaced by a new, clean HD, you also lose whatever BIOS setup you had, and sometimes you actually need a specialized boot floppy to set up the system again.

Flashing the BIOS is a good idea only if you KNOW that the new BIOS solves a particular problem you have. The procedure is not risk-free.

/RID
if those cant solve your problem, perhaps goto authorized Compac dealer. ask them for a factory-reset. it costs a lil fee.

i am guessing.. when u r trying to enter the Bios.. did u wrongly key in wrong passwork that makes your machine locked.

-john
...........update

I found a reset button on the lappy, when pressed to laptop booted up ok, I got some errors about unable to open applications, but after a few restarts the BIOS error comes up again.

the I K , and space bar does not work!

I tried an externel K/B and that works fine, I donw know what the keys would not work for no reason, is this relater to the BIOS error, any ideas?

H
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rid
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I may try this tomorrow

H
Rid, it was the K/B connector, it wernt in properly, I cleaned the connector and reconnected, and now it all works, and the BIOS error is gone.

H
Nice to hear that!
Cheers
/RID